Ski and (Another) Graduation Trip

Now that it's already March, the academic semester of for general Japanese student is gonna end. It is quite common I guess for every lab to plan and go for a graduation trip. Both as a celebration and farewell event for members who is going to graduate, and also as a breather in the middle of stressful research activities. So my lab is going to go to another (I didn't write our previous trip to Izu, but oh well..) graduation trip, and this time we're going to go ski!

I'm quite anxious and excited for this trip cause this will be my first time skiing, albeit I already stay for more than 2 years in this four-season country. Well, there's no way I'm going to go ski alone of course, and so far our lab members don't seem to be interested about ski trip (or more possibly, it never crossed their mind). I didn't really have a strong urge to go either, so yeah... Anyway, this time there's a new first year master's student that likes ski so much, so he suggested that we go to ski for graduation trip this time. So the plan is, we're going to go and spend the night at ryokan, and then spend the rest of the time on the ski resort.

The thing is, the trip to Nagano prefecture took around 4-5 hours if I remember it correctly. So we departed from lab at around 11 AM and arrived at ryokan at around 4 PM. So we're a bit in a pinch here. Whether we should buy a half day pass (around 4200 yen) , which is valid for 4 hours, and go to ski before dinner, or rest a bit and take a dinner first then buy a nighter pass (around 2100 yen) and go to ski for 2 hours. We decided to go with the 2nd plan, considering the time and cost, also we have to rent some ski equipment so yeah.. Dinner, as usual, is superb. One of the most anticipated thing, and I guess one aspect which makes is so expensive, in ryokan is its kaiseki ryori or traditional multi-course Japanese dinner. I ate this kind of dinner a couple of times in ryokan before and it's always amazing. We got a room for ourselves, and served exclusively by a host for the whole dinner course. Needless to say, it's always an exceptional experience, even for my Japanese friends.

Anyway the ski resort that we went to is Shiga Kogen, located in Yamanouchi town, Shimotakai District, Nagano Prefecture. It is said to be the largest combined ski area in Japan, and yup, it really is huge!

Shiga Kogen Map.

With the nighter ticket on our 1st day however, we could only ski for about 2 hours (from 7 - 9 PM). Add the time needed for dinner which can only start from 6 PM, getting ready, and the time travel from ryokan to the ski resort itself, maybe we arrived around 7.30 PM or later I'm not so sure. So there it is, my first time ski is nighter, with only around 1 hour time, and the last is I start at the advanced course! All of my friends obviously already had some experience with ski. Though not all of them are good (haha), but at least they already got the basics. So I can just follow where they're going cause I don't have any idea either how to ski or more importantly how the ski resort system works. Back to the advanced course, it's so high and the slope is so steep I can barely see what beneath me. I actually watched some tutorial video about ski before (it's really helpful!) but I guess the real thing is much more difficult haha.. Fortunately my friends teach me a lot of things so I can manage little by little. Sadly when I finally get the gist of it, the time is over. So short!!

The next day we planned to ski all day, we got up early, had a good breakfast, and bought a full day ticket. The weather is clear, there's a lot of snow, and because it's already March, it's not that cold. Very comfortable. For ski itself, I managed to ski get the hang of it (maybe because of the countless numbers of falls the night before), and can ski comfortably by myself. This time I actually try to start from the beginner course, before moving on to middle course. The views are out of this world, a lot of mountains with a stream of snow on it looks like rivers of milk hahaha.. We managed to move around a lot, to other course and other mountain. Riding lifts, and even gondola to the highest peak. And finally, together with my friends, I can manage to ski on the advanced (black diamond) course, albeit slowly and carefully hahaha. One of the most beautiful view that I can remember is from one of the highest place, and we can see a lot of other mountains beneath us covered with clouds(?) or fog I'm not sure, but it's simply breathtaking. We spent all day exploring the resort before the fog starting to go down even to the lowest place, making the whole ski resort literally disappear. Even when we're going back by car, the whole town and road are covered by fog so thick that it looks like an abandoned town from post-apocalyptic movie/game. Feels like entering other world through some sort of portal or anything like that.

That one view that I'm talking about.

Finally though it's a little expensive, well not a little actually, but it's a very good experience and enjoyable trip. I can't wait to have another ski trip like this, maybe someday....